Joseph Kallinger – The Shoemaker

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Joseph Kallinger was known as the Shoemaker

In the mid-70s home invasions throughout the tri-state area were on an uptake.  Two perpetrators would not only break into unsuspecting residences, but they would toy with their victims for hours.  Soon the invasions escalated to sexual assaults and murder.  Who were they?  Why did they torment and torture their victims?  Was it for the money or the thrill of seeing the fear in their victim’s eyes?  Listen to the story of Joseph Kallinger, otherwise known as The Shoemaker.

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Special thanks to our friend Sarah D. for this episode as she generously provided a book highlighting this case.

Location

The story takes place in the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA. It is known for being a large Irish Catholic neighborhood made of working-class families. Employment predominantly comes from the nearby waterfront. It is also known as the birthplace of the K&A Gang or the Irish Mob.

Playground in the neighborhood of Kensington, Philadelphia
Playground in the neighborhood of Kensington, Philadelphia

In the 1950s this area was hit hard economically but it has begun to revitalize with an influx of young urban professionals and businesses such as breweries, art galleries, and performance spaces.

January 17, 1976

On January 17, 1976, 39-year-old Joseph Kallinger is arrested at his East Sterner Street row home. He shared this home with his second wife, Elizabeth and six children (two from his first marriage). Kallinger is charged with murder, assault, and robbery. He and his 12-year-old son had gone on a crime spree through the tri-state area (PA, NJ & Maryland).

Early Life

Joseph Kallinger was born on December 11, 1936, to Judith Renner Scurti. Judith put Joseph up for adoption when he was a month old due to his biological father not being Judith’s husband at the time. Joseph was adopted at age 2 by Stephen & Anna Kallinger. They were Austrian immigrants who operated a shoe repair business in Kensington.

By the age of 7, Joseph was practically working full-time for his parent’s business – working before and after school and all day on Saturday.

According to Joseph Kallinger, his childhood was wrought with abuse. He claims his parents would beat him with a hammer and whip him with a flogger all while threatening to return him to the orphanage. When he was 11 his parents caught him stealing and punished him by burning his fingers on the stove. This type of abuse continued when he wouldn’t stop stealing.

At the age of 8, Joseph Kallinger was sexually assaulted by a group of boys at knifepoint. One of the boys performed oral sex on him. Professionals feel that this incident may have led Joseph to equate sex with violence. After that incident, Joseph would often masturbate while holding a knife in his hand staring at pictures of naked men and women.

Marriage

At the tender age of 17, he married his girlfriend, Hilda who bore him two children. She left Kallinger for another man after years of abuse. Kallinger married for a second time in 1958 at the age of 22 to a woman named Betty.

From 1958 to 1967, Kallinger sets fire to the homes he had been living in to claim the insurance money. He is never found out.

The family moved to a row home in 1972. This small row home housed two adults and six children (including the 2 children from Kallinger’s first marriage).

Home Life

When Joe Jr. was 14 years old he and two siblings went to the police to report their father for abuse. They claimed he tied them up and beat them. His daughter, Mary Jo, claimed that she was branded on her thigh with a clothes iron after she ran away.

Joseph Kallinger was brought in for questioning and denied all of the allegations, but police moved forward with having all of the Kallnger children examined. Doctors found significant signs of abuse and in turn police charged Kallinger with three counts of child abuse. Kallinger was found guilty on all counts and was sentenced to seven months in jail, all of which he had already served while awaiting trial. He was also ordered to serve four years of probation with mandatory psychiatric treatment.

In February 1973, Joe Jr. and his other siblings met with the judge that sentenced their father and told him that they had lied to the police. Police felt that Kallingers had forced their children to recant their testimony, but the judge disagreed and removed Kallinger’s conviction from his record.

Joe Jr. Disapears

Joe Jr. ended up being removed from his home because authorities felt he was emotionally disturbed. He was sent to the Bucks County Reformatory School. Joe Jr. was allowed to return home on the weekends and was released in May 1974. In July 1974 Joseph Kallinger took out two life insurance policies on Joe Jr, who was 14 at the time.

  • One for $24,000.
  • Second for $45,000.
  • Total of $69,000.
  • In 2020 that equals $383,792.

That same month Joe Jr. disappeared. His body was discovered in August 1974 in an abandoned building on the corner of Ninth & Market Streets. The building was scheduled for demolition. Joe Jr’s body was found under some rubble, but the cause of death could not be determined at that time.

When Kallinger was contacted he told police that Joe Jr. probably fell while exploring the building as his body had been found in the basement. Another theory Kallinger floated was that his son was killed by a gay lover. Police did not believe either theory, but there was nothing to tie Kallinger to his son’s death. Kallinger attempted to collect on both insurance policies but wasn’t successful as the insurance company refused to pay.

November 1974

On November 22nd, Kallinger and his 13-year-old son, Michael took a bus to New Jersey. They planned on burglarizing a home in Lindenwold. No one was home at the time. After breaking in and stealing what they wanted they broke into another residence. This time Kallinger sexually assaulted the woman who lived there.

December 1974

Kallinger and Michael broke into a home in Susquehanna Township, PA on December 3rd. Susquehanna Township is a suburb of Harrisburg. This home belonged to the Bogin Family. Helen Bogin along with three of her friends were enjoying an afternoon bridge game when Kallinger and his son broke in.

They made all four women strip naked then tied them up. Kallinger began to toy with the women even cutting Helen’s left breast as a warning to play along. The pair fled the home with $20,000 in cash and jewelry.

Later in December, Kallinger and Michael traveled to Homeland, MD, and held a woman captive in her home. They forced her to perform sexual acts on Kallinger while he held a gun to the victim.

January 8, 1975

The pair took a bus to Leonia, New Jersey to the home of the Romaine family in January 1975. They forced their way into the home after trying to gain entry posing as salesmen and took the couple hostage along with six friends who were visiting that day. 

Maria (21) worked as a nurse and was a close family friend who had just stopped by. Kallinger and his son terrorized the hostages for several hours. Ultimately, Maria was taken to the basement where she died after asphyxiating on her own blood after Kallinger cut her throat.

Edwina was able to escape from her bonds and ran into the street screaming. A neighbor had heard her screams notified police. As police were entering the home through the front door Kallinger and Michael were running out the back. The pair were soon spotted by a woman who had been out walking her dog. She reported that she saw an older male with a young boy running down a nearby hill.

Police found a blood-stained shirt and footprints in the mud on the path the pair were seen running down. Police took a cast of the footprints. Further along, police recovered a .32 caliber revolver and a bloody knife. On the bloody shirt, detectives found a laundry tag with the initials “KAL”. The police then reached out to Philadelphia police due to the laundry mark and to see if any similar crimes had occurred in their jurisdiction. Joseph Felsher, a dry cleaner, was able to identify the owner of the shirt as Joseph Kallinger.

Closing In

Police began to suspect Joseph Kallinger as he was identified by several victims of the home invasions. Police searched Kallinger’s home along with his mother’s home. She lived right beside him. They recovered several stolen items in both homes.

Kallinger was arrested and charged with assault, robbery, and murder on January 17, 1975. Michael was also arrested as was his other son, James (11) because police were unsure which son was Kallinger’s accomplice at the time. James was eventually released. Michael was transferred to a nearby juvenile facility.

Michael wasn’t charged due to being a juvenile and never stood trial. However, he was ruled a delinquent and sent to a PA Youth Development Center in Warrendale. He was released after a year-and-a-half and moved in with a foster family after legally changing his name.

March 27, 1975

Kallinger’s trial commenced in Harrisburg, PA. Malcolm Berkowitz represented Kallinger at trial. The trial focused on the Susquehanna Township home invasion. A fingerprint expert testified that Kallinger’s prints were found in the Bogin residence. A state trooper told the jury that a watch, ring, and a set of earrings taken from the Bogin residence were recovered in Kallinger’s Philadelphia home.

When it was the defense’s turn to go they blamed Kallinger’s behavior on the toxic chemicals he used in his shoe repair business. They supported this theory by putting two expert witnesses on the stand.

  • Frederic Reider, Chief Toxicologist for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office.
  • Robert Sadoff, University of Pennsylvania, psychiatrist.

Sadoff testified that Kallinger exhibited signs of schizophrenia and paranoia as a result of his exposure to toxic substances. Kallinger’s wife, Elizabeth testified that the shoe repair shop did not have ventilation and they were unable to open the doors or windows because the neighbors would complain. She also stated that her husband would suffer from headaches and dizziness when he came home at the end of the day.

She added that he would claim GOD had talked to him and gave him special instructions.

CDP Life Tip #7

In his closing, Berkowitz told the jury that no one knew what the cumulative effects of inhaling toxic chemicals were over long periods of time.  Because of this exposure, it was possible that Joseph Kallinger did not know right from wrong and was therefore not responsible for his actions. The jury would not render a verdict in this trial and it was ended in a mistrial.

A 70-year-old Dauphin County Sheriff’s Matron had apparently voiced her opinion on Kallinger’s guilt to some of the sequestered jurors she was overseeing. 

Second Trial

Prior to his second trial commencing Kallinger’s attorney unsuccessfully tried to have his charges dropped due to the extensive pretrial publicity. This trial had to do with some of the other home invasions and robberies. Kallinger was charged with four counts of robbery, four counts of false imprisonment, and one count of burglary.

This time Kallinger took the stand in his own defense. He went off on rambling tangents and disjointed ideas hoping to convince the jury he was insane. Kallinger told the jury that he suffered from blackouts during which he couldn’t remember what occurred. He also told them that he was the son of GOD and that GOD talked to him and gave him orders to follow.

His plan failed as the jury convicted him of burglary, robbery, and false imprisonment in less than one hour. He was sentenced to a minimum of 30-80 years in prison.

Additional Charges

Kallinger still had other charges to face namely for two additional home invasions. Authorities were still trying to figure out Kallinger’s motive for his crimes as he gave conflicting reasons for why he carried out his crimes.

  • The devil made me do it.
  • God told him to make shoes for people whose brains didn’t work because of their poor footwear.
  • To purge the world of the unworthy.
  • As for Maria Fasching’s murder – he blamed that on Michael.

Testing

Kallinger went through a battery of tests to determine if in fact, he was mentally ill and if he knew the difference between right and wrong. This is a requirement in PA & NJ for an insanity defense.

Dr. John Hume, a neurologist, completed a battery of tests over a two hour period. He diagnosed Kallinger with an antisocial personality disorder. He felt that Kallinger was faking having a mental illness so that would qualify him for an insanity defense. Since the authorities weren’t buying into his insanity defense Kallinger tried to change their minds by:

  • Destroying his jail cell.
  • Keeping his urine in cups under his bed.
  • Throwing his feces at the guards.

Even with all these efforts, doctors refused to change their minds.

New Attorney & New Author

Kallinger eventually got a new attorney, Paul Giblin, to represent him. Giblin in turn had Dr. Irwin Perr from Rutgers University Medical School examine Kallinger. This examination took place over two days and in the end, he diagnosed him with schizophrenia. With that diagnosis, Kallinger would not know right from wrong and qualify for an insanity defense.

With this new diagnosis, Kallinger reached out to the author, Flora Rheta Schreiber to see about writing his life story in hopes of persuading the courts to accept an insanity defense.

Flora Rheta Schreiber wrote the book “Sybil” about a woman with 16 different personalities. Sally Field played her in a movie of the same name. Schreiber was not a trained mental health professional or therapist. She was an English and Speech Professor at the City University in New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Schreiber agreed to meet with Kallniger.

1976

When Schreiber first met Kallinger they were untrusting of each other. This soon gave way to a relationship that was rumored to have gone beyond professional. Schreiber wrote, “The Shoemaker:  The Anatomy of a Psychotic” published in 1983. You can find it on Amazon for $42.25 hardcover.

Some found “The Shoemaker” to be made up of few facts, the author’s own opinions, and basically a “profile of a master manipulator”. In “The Shoemaker” Kallinger shares the story of 10-year-old Jose Collazo’s murder in July 1974. Jose was found in an abandoned factory with his penis cut off and put up his rectum.

Kallinger blames Jose’s death and the mutilation of his body on Michael. He told Michael that he had orders from GOD to murder young boys and sever their genitals.

Kallinger also told Schreiber about killing his son Joe Jr. by drowning him. He claimed that he saw a severed head called “Charlie” that would haunt him afterward. It was Charlie who told him to stab Maria Fasching after she refused his command to perform oral sex on one of the other captives in the home.

He conveniently forgot to mention the two life insurance policies – that wasn’t in the book.

In an ironic twist, if Kallinger had not talked about the murders of Jose & Joe Jr., he might not have been held responsible for them and eventually convicted of their murders. He received two additional life sentences for these murders.

September 13, 1976

In September 1976, Kallinger goes on trial for Maria’s murder in Hackensack, NJ. In addition, there were charges for the Romaine home invasion, assault, and theft of property. During the trial, Kallinger did his best to disrupt it on several occasions. He really tried hard to show the jury how insane he was by often moaning and babbling incoherently.

Kalliinger struggled numerous times with courtroom officials due to his outbursts. The trial lasted until October 13th and after two hours of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict of guilty on all counts. Kallinger was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

1977

In 1977 Kallinger goes on trial once again, this time in Camden, NJ for two more home invasions. He set his jail cell on fire while awaiting trial. He was then transferred to a psychiatric hospital in Trenton and stayed there for three weeks. Once again he was given a battery of psychiatric testing, but he was still unsuccessful in getting doctors to believe that he didn’t know what he was doing when he committed his crimes.

Still, he tried, even attempting suicide once again by lighting his room on fire and in another attempt trying to suffocate himself.

Eventually, he was returned to Pennsylvania where he had to complete his sentences before he could be transferred back to NJ to serve his sentences there. Joseph Kallinger was transported to Huntington State Correctional Institution to begin his first thirty-year sentence. Initially, he was kept in isolation until the prison staff found him to be stable. He was then transferred to the general population.

Kallinger didn’t seem to acclimate with his fellow prisoners and after a few months, he stabbed and strangled another inmate. He also went on a hunger strike.

1978

Kallinger’s hard work finally paid off and in 1978 he was transferred to the Farview State Hospital. Farview was a maximum-security mental health hospital designated for criminally insane inmates. He was officially diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Kallinger stayed at Farview for a number of years when he was transferred to a medium-security prison in Cresson, PA.

There he spent five years in solitary confinement under suicide watch. In 1996, Kallinger died from a seizure-induced heart attack while still in prison at the age of 59.

Schreiber and Kallinger remained in touch up until his death.

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